56 réponses à ce sujet

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Sorry about the hold up... Hey, you're the same fella' I've been speaking with elsewhere. Well ain't that a B.

Anyway, what kind of constructive comments you interested in? Characterization and important stuff like that, or nit-picky stylistic things like, "you could substitute 'Upon seeing the look of incredulity' with 'noticing the incredulous look' "?

Or... everything that comes to mind?

I just notice the constructions on the first read through. After it ruminates for a day, I'll do the second read. Sorry I wasn't quicker getting it read.

I don't think the nit picky stuff is really important, given that that stuff kind of irons itself out on its own as one gains experience, but things to do with characters and plot development would be good.

I am also looking for what you thought about it as a whole, whether you liked it, what parts of it you liked, and other stuff in that vein. I like to discuss fiction, a big reason I'm here in the first place, and it is only natural I would want to hear what others thought about certain parts.

[The_Numerator]

Very interesting. This LADAR profiles business-- Was that your own creation, or something from the books and other sources? Aside from ME1 and 2, "Redemption" is the only other material I've read, so I had a lot of trouble separating your own narrative from the parts of narrative that I assume you adopted from one or more of the novels.

Though, maybe you should take that as a compliment-- Seamlessly blending the two IS what you want to be doing, after all...

Just wrapping up chapter 9. I'll be finished soon. But I couldn't wait to ask about the LADAR silhouettes business.

Modifié par The_Numerator, 02 novembre 2010 - 07:04 .

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Very interesting. This LADAR profiles business-- Was that your own creation, or something from the books and other sources? Aside from ME1 and 2, "Redemption" is the only other material I've read, so I had a lot of trouble separating your own narrative from the parts of narrative that I assume you adopted from one or more of the novels.

Though, maybe you should take that as a compliment-- Seamlessly blending the two IS what you want to be doing, after all...

Just wrapping up chapter 9. I'll be finished soon. But I couldn't wait to ask about the LADAR silhouettes business.

It was my own creation. The geth don't seem like they would have that information, eavesdropping can only tell you so much.

I infered how it functioned from Joker's comments about it as well as the comments about the Rachni vessels.

[The_Numerator]

What comments of Joker's, in particular?


Otherwise, right to it.

When you read, the mind generates a "motion picture". With good writing, regardless of subject, the "film" is clear, continuous, and detailed. In bad writing, it isn't.

How a particular piece of writing accomplishes this is typically unique to that piece of writing. But determining whether a piece of writing has accomplished this or not is nearly equivalent to determining whether that piece of writing is good or not.

Of course, the mind of some have an easier time of getting the picture resolved than others-- Just as not all film-projectors are created equally. But increased quality of writing makes starting the film easier for everyone, and lowers bar of accessibility, allowing for an even greater audience. Broadly speaking, what we mean is how evocative a written work is.

But particularly with that last section, I can tell I'm in danger of digressing into theory discussion, so I'll redirect:

In this case, you made a good first impression-- the picture quality was generally quite good. And the fact that I was struck by it early on was a good sign: If that much is at least the case, you definitely have a solid foundation.

Generally speaking, you segued well from dialogue to narrative and back again, your descriptions were consistently clear and concise, and you've a strong grasp of the characters you worked with. In particular, you really seem to have Aria T'Loak's number.

Mind you, I don't know whether that's common or not. I imagine there's an Aria T'Loak-specific thread in the character section of the forums where I could go, and perform a general assessment to find out, were I feeling inclined to do so. Still, commonplace or not, that wouldn't detract from your own accomplishment in any way.

Finally, you concocted a tight, clean, and surprisingly interesting little subplot that you stuck to and executed thoroughly. And when I say surprising, I don't mean that I was surprised that it was interesting-- although that is always a danger. What in fact surprised me, was how interesting it was. And for a 45 minute read, no less!

And this goes back to my question about the LADAR, and my comments about having difficulty separating your material from the source material: Just what parts of that were yours, and what parts were from books? And which books? Christ, I think I might actually now have an interest in going to read about the ongoing adventures of Councilor Anderson.

Now, maybe you're a little suspicious that you haven't seen any criticism yet. Well, I like to start off nice and leave people feeling like **** at the end. So ha.

But seriously, most of the problems were so-called "technical" problems, which editing would likely remedy. Other than that, I was struck a sense of pacing issues, particularly with the last two chapters (actually, the last chapter and the epilogue), as well as some characterization issues. I know I already mentioned characterization as a strong area, but "when you were good, you were very, very good, and when you were bad, you were...", well... not quite that far. But since the problem concerned characters not central to your narrative (ie. not Garrus, Shepard, or Aria), I assumed it was more oversight than lack of comprehension. But remember-- You've got to be a stickler for details.

Modifié par The_Numerator, 21 octobre 2010 - 05:46 .

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

What comments of Joker's, in particular?


Otherwise, right to it.

When you read, the mind generates a "motion picture". With good writing, regardless of subject, the "film" is clear, continuous, and detailed. In bad writing, it isn't.

How a particular piece of writing accomplishes this is typically unique to that piece of writing. But determining whether a piece of writing has accomplished this or not is nearly equivalent to determining whether that piece of writing is good or not.

Of course, the mind of some have an easier time of getting the picture resolved than others-- Just as not all film-projectors are created equally. But increased quality of writing makes starting the film easier for everyone, and lowers bar of accessibility, allowing for an even greater audience. Broadly speaking, what we mean is how evocative a written work is.

But particularly with that last section, I can tell I'm in danger of digressing into theory discussion, so I'll redirect:

In this case, you made a good first impression-- the picture quality was generally quite good. And the fact that I was struck by it early on was a good sign: If that much is at least the case, you definitely have a solid foundation.

Generally speaking, you segued well from dialogue to narrative and back again, your descriptions were consistently clear and concise, and you've a strong grasp of the characters you worked with. In particular, you really seem to have Aria T'Loak's number.

Mind you, I don't know whether that's common or not. I imagine there's an Aria T'Loak-specific thread in the character section of the forums where I could go, and perform a general assessment to find out, were I feeling inclined to do so. Still, commonplace or not, that wouldn't detract from your own accomplishment in any way.

Finally, you concocted a tight, clean, and surprisingly interesting little subplot that you stuck to and executed thoroughly. And when I say surprising, I don't mean that I was surprised that it was interesting-- although that is always a danger. What in fact surprised me, was how interesting it was. And a for a 45 minute read, no less!

And this goes back to my question about the LADAR, and my comments about having difficulty separating your material from the source material: Just what parts of that were yours, and what parts were from books? And which books? Christ, I think I might actually now have an interest in going to read about the ongoing adventures of Councilor Anderson.

Now, maybe you're a little suspicious that you haven't seen any criticism yet. Well, I like to start off nice and leave people feeling like **** at the end. So ha.

But seriously, most of the problems were so-called "technical" problems, which editing would like remedy. Other than that, I was struck a sense of pacing issues, particularly with the last two chapters (actually, the last chapter and the epilogue), as well as some characterization issues. I know I already mentioned characterization as a strong area, but "when you were good, you were very, very good-- and when you were bad, you were...", well, not quite that far. But since the problem concerned characters not central to your narrative (ie. not Garrus, Shepard, or Aria), I assumed it was more oversight than lack of comprehension. But remember-- You've got to be a stickler for details.

Thank you for that in depth and critical analysis of my work.  Right around the time I was writing the final chapter and the Epilogue I started getting sick and it was about four in the morning. I did go back and read through to make sure there was proper continuity throughout and adjusted the pacing as I could.

To elaborate, the specific dialog from Joker was on the Reaper IFF mission, the opening cinematic. "The LADAR paints its silhouette as Geth." is the line in question. This to me meant it functioned almost like an FBI image comparison database. It sounded like this device compared the silhouette of an object to profiles in a database until it found a match.

The news transmissions about the Rachni also give me this impression. "Scouting ships have spotted vessels of an unknown make, but whose silhouette profiles strongly resemble those of ancient Rachni ships" or something along those lines. Again it sounds like comparing an image to a database, and thus my usage of it.

What aspects were you curious about in regards to weaving existing canon narrative into my story? I had just read Retribution so most of the Aria, Grayson, Leng, and Anderson stuff is from there. Grayson and Anderson are featured in other novels, and there are other parts of Retribution that were in my story. It was the most relevant to Shepard's story really, the other books take place elsewhere with either a non shepard related character as the main character or decades before the events of the ME series of games.

[GuardianAngel470]

Also, which characters do you feel I didn't portray very well?

[The_Numerator]

Okay, how do I tackle this?



Right, so you've got two narratives going, henceforth the Shepard-Aria and the Garrus narrative, or just S-A and G, for extra lazy-**** points.



Now as best I can gather, S-A is heavy on the Retribution, of which I know all of beans about. Consequently, unless(until?) I go and read Retribution, or you give me a detailed plot synopsis, my ability to dissect that narrative is going to be severely limited. Like, seriously-- Is Shepard even in Retribution, because that's totally the impression you get from your story, and I can't tell if that's your "adaptation", or that's what actually happened, and while it's a sign of good writing, I'm all "What what? Did they actually use Shepard in a novel? How could that be? What is happening to me!?"



God, I'm tired. Moving on.



The G narrative. God, that even looks lazy. Was it really too hard to type arrus as well?



Take two.



The Garrus narrative. Here you're dealing with two things. You got Garrus' personal matters on the one hand, and as concerns my questions so far, the LADAR business. And that's what I'll stick to now, because that's what I'm still hung up on. In this respect, you addressed a real and as-yet unanswered question: Why the hell hasn't anyone come back from the Perseus Veil if most of the Geth back there aren't out for blood? But you did it with LADAR. And it was just so sly... See, that's what I'm asking about-- Where on earth did that flash of inspiration come from? "They lacked tactical information, so couldn't discriminate between friends and enemies". It's just a very neat angle.



Although as I type now, I'm struck by questions like, "Why hadn't they deduced what was a threat or not from information gathered from debris of vessels they destroyed?", or "Why hadn't they decrypted Alliance and Hierarchy military transmissions over the last decades of monitoring and slowly pieced together tactical information that way?"



I don't know. I'm very tired. I really haven't the mental stamina to sort things out right now. I would take this reply with a grain of salt. Mostly it was conceived to express how excited I was by how you tackled that question. Now bedtime.

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Okay, how do I tackle this?

Right, so you've got two narratives going, henceforth the Shepard-Aria and the Garrus narrative, or just S-A and G, for extra lazy-**** points.

Now as best I can gather, S-A is heavy on the Retribution, of which I know all of beans about. Consequently, unless(until?) I go and read Retribution, or you give me a detailed plot synopsis, my ability to dissect that narrative is going to be severely limited. Like, seriously-- Is Shepard even in Retribution, because that's totally the impression you get from your story, and I can't tell if that's your "adaptation", or that's what actually happened, and while it's a sign of good writing, I'm all "What what? Did they actually use Shepard in a novel? How could that be? What is happening to me!?"

God, I'm tired. Moving on.

The G narrative. God, that even looks lazy. Was it really too hard to type arrus as well?

Take two.

The Garrus narrative. Here you're dealing with two things. You got Garrus' personal matters on the one hand, and as concerns my questions so far, the LADAR business. And that's what I'll stick to now, because that's what I'm still hung up on. In this respect, you addressed a real and as-yet unanswered question: Why the hell hasn't anyone come back from the Perseus Veil if most of the Geth back there aren't out for blood? But you did it with LADAR. And it was just so sly... See, that's what I'm asking about-- Where on earth did that flash of inspiration come from? "They lacked tactical information, so couldn't discriminate between friends and enemies". It's just a very neat angle.

Although as I type now, I'm struck by questions like, "Why hadn't they deduced what was a threat or not from information gathered from debris of vessels they destroyed?", or "Why hadn't they decrypted Alliance and Hierarchy military transmissions over the last decades of monitoring and slowly pieced together tactical information that way?"

I don't know. I'm very tired. I really haven't the mental stamina to sort things out right now. I would take this reply with a grain of salt. Mostly it was conceived to express how excited I was by how you tackled that question. Now bedtime.

Alright, to answer the Shepard-Aria question, a plot synopsis. Shepard drops off the grid, you don't see him at all. TIM, having gained some Reaper nano-tech from the Collector base, restarts some of the experiments the Collectors were conducting. He plans to use Grayson, an ex-Cerberus operative who betrayed him in the last novel, as the primary test subject.

Grayson was working for Aria and had risen to something of a Lieutenant for her, despite the fact she knew nothing about him. He was also sleeping with her daughter, though he didn't know about the relation. Liselle, the daughter, pleads with Aria not to kill Grayson (alias Johnson) because of her lack of info, and Aria relents. 

Leng leads an Op to kidnap Grayson and he and Liselle happen to be having sex when it happens. He keeps enough wits about him to send a message containing all sorts of Cerberus secrets to another character from the last novel, Kahlee Sanders. She's already thwarted one Cerberus plot.

Leng kills Liselle after they had tranquilized her by slitting her throat.

So that's the grudge angle and why she was naked.

After TIM gets Grayson, they inject him with reaper nanotech and he slowly becomes an Avatar for the Reapers.

Sanders meanwhile goes to the only person she can trust with the Cerberus intel, her old, old friend Anderson (from book one, that one is about Anderson's bid for spectre). Anderson knows he can't go to the Alliance with it so instead he goes to the turians. He and Sanders plan a huge operation to arrest as many Cerberus plants in power as they can, shut down as many Cerberus front businesses as they can, and destroy as many Cerberus bases as they can.

One of those bases was where TIM, Kai Leng, and Grayson were. TIM and Leng get away, but Grayson is "rescued" by the turians. He's already directly under the control of the Reapers, so of course he kills everyone aboard his shuttle and runs.

And that's the attack by Anderson that I mentioned.

TIM goes to Aria through Leng to kill Grayson and Aria kidnaps Anderson and Kahlee in order to lure Grayson out of hiding. It works, but Aria had decided to take Grayson alive so he gets away, now with intel on the Ascension project and Grissom Academy, which are mentioned in Jack's loyalty mission and the Overlord DLC respectively. For recap, the Ascension Project is an Alliance led school for biotic children that is a part of the Grissom Academy, a school for special cases. It's on a space station.

Grayson goes to this space station and starts downloading intel on human biotics, and Anderson and Sanders escape from Aria and head after him along with Leng.  Stuff happens, Anderson kills Grayson with a shotgun while suffering major damage to himself, and he shoots Leng in each leg to try and slow him down enough to be captured by the security.  But he gets away.

So that's the limp and Anderson connection.

As for the LADAR, I surmised that that sort of data wouldn't be transfered as openly as videos on the future version of youtube and hacking systems from the perseus Veil wouldn't work. It would take too long for their messages to get from there to wherever the data is held. The extranet is through FTL comm buoys which isn't instantaneous. By the time their commands reached their destinations any system could lock itself down.

I gather this from the fact that Legion says they monitor unsecured broadcasts, and not secure broadcasts. You would think they could just hack them, but I am guessing that it is because of the distance that they don't.

In my first short story, which was considerably shorter and less thought out, I have the geth hack the Citadel fleet almost instaneously, but that is because there are 30,000+ warships in close proximity to them. The processing power, IMO, would have been sufficient.

Modifié par GuardianAngel470, 21 octobre 2010 - 07:16 .

[GuardianAngel470]

Well, this whole story was something of a spin off of a scenario that had been going through my head for a while. I had often pondered a scenario in which Samara either takes a message to the geth by asking an Asari captain to take her to Geth space or go there for repairs on her geth weapon or something. The more common variant was a mistyped FTL coordinate, but it had always been from laziness. Samara of course would contact the geth and call off the attack. I came up with the LADAR connection during these ruminations. It seemed logical to me that a species that had spent 300 years in seclusion wouldn't have current information on vessels or anything like that. There were also reports of Geth turning spacers into husks and sending them back into Council space; there's a side quest as well as a codex entry for this.

To me it would be like locking a baby up in a closet for her whole life and then letting her out and expecting her to recognize a car, or a TV, or anything. They just weren't provided with that information, at least to my knowledge. The best they might have had were videos and advertisements and to be honest, if you never expected to come out of the proverbial closet, would you spend the time analyzing what you don't have? The geth want to understand organics, it is their sole driving aspiration aside from the Dyson sphere. They don't however want to understand their tech. That is something they have expressed.

But then LotSB came out and I read the dialog between Garrus and his sister. I thought about a vacation scenario but I hate campy so I needed to somehow make it relevant and have it fit within the canon (my sister, the one whose fan fiction account it is, loves the crazy and crossover fanfictions on that site. I don't spend any time thinking about things that can't happen, I'm more of a realist). I ultimately tied my Samara idea into Garrus' character development.

As for the Shepard part, I had come up with the idea of orbital bombardment with sniper rifles early on but hadn't really had a place to apply it. I then read Retribution and figured my Paragade Shepard would love to kill three birds with one stone (Aria loyalty, Leng dead, test conducted). I had really loved Aria's character, she really was my kind of girl. If she wasn't Wrex's, I'd totally romance her ("Better luck next time" after the salarian space station fight in ME1 (I don't take credit for this connection, I read it here on the forums)).

Also, Aria is a fairly big character in Retribution, that's where I got most of her characteristics.

Modifié par GuardianAngel470, 21 octobre 2010 - 07:39 .

[GuardianAngel470]

I should also note that Anderson was an advisor in Retribution, so they did establish a canon. He also renounces that position but I like to think my Councilor Anderson did the same thing.

[The_Numerator]

Alright. Gettin' started for the evening. Hoo-rah. But boy, have I ever got a problem with putting things off until the last minute.

Hmm. Need to find me some tunes first.

Check. Now then...

It's difficult to descibe precisely: There's a fine line between anger and whininess; between the justified hostility of a traumatized human being, and the petulant sniveling of a little girl who can't get her way. Ugh. I feel I'm on the verge of a character deconstruction. Dodging that bullet, Jack came off a bit on the childish side of things, and it was probably just the choice of a single word, or a misplaced bit of punctuation that did it.

Similarly, I just had some trouble putting Gardner's voice to his dialogue. But I'm even less sure about what the cause may have been. Insufficiently terse, perhaps? The cause isn't obvious to me. Nonetheless, something didn't quite sit right. Again, probably a matter of a few words and a misplaced comma.

As I said, they were exceptionally minor characters in the story, so I credited it to a desire on your part not to linger on unimportant things. But as I added, in the end, it always pays to be a stickler for those little details. Because even the little things momentarily distract the reader and interrupt the flow of the story.

Three paragraphs for a one-line question. This doesn't bode well for the long bits to come.

First, my reaction to your synopsis: Holy ****, that's brutal. Second, I liked the whole orbital death hand-shot to begin with; as in a life, a little well-placed theatrics in literature can work wonders. And after getting to know about this Leng ****** from the summary, it was made all the more satisfying.

Now a moment for clarification: Did Legion say that they monitored unsecured transmissions, or all transmissions? You know what, maybe I'll just go load up a save and check to save you the trouble. I know I've got one where I just turned him on. I am generally keen to investigate this business about nothing coming back from the Perseus Veil, because now that you've brought it up, I don't remember it ever actually being resolved, though I thought Shepard asked Legion about it... Questions questions.

And the origins of the story concept...  Yes... Geth psychology. Very fertile territory, indeed. And inspired direction, to be sure. I don't know for a fact, but I would assume there aren't many stories out there that take a crack at it in any meaningful way. Could be a niche to carve out there. Just saying, if you were of a mind. I did want to go into the closet-baby Geth business, but that could
really explode as a concept to explore, as part of the larger Geth
psychology, and I don't want to give too much more for you to have to sort through in one post than there is already. So I'll save that for later.

And Aria, well yeah, you can't not like Aria. She really set a lot of the tone for ME2 from the prologue up until Horizon. First Miranda, then the Illusive Man, the Aria-- A bunch of self-imporant ***holes in quick succession, which defined that initial angry, bitter, resentful phase. But because Aria wasn't an obnoxious idealogue, and wasn't bull*****ing me constantly-- even being helpful; well, you see through her bravado pretty quickly, and soften to her. Even her quaint patronizing became endearing. "Yes, Aria. I know, Aria-- Queen of Omega, Aria. Whatever you say, Aria." And then once I discovered that, not only was Archangel really Garrus, but that Garrus was in ME2, well, that just brightened me right up like you wouldn't believe. In fact, he pretty much took my mind off of all my problems, until the Horizon debacle. Was all, "Yep. Garrus is back. Everything is just fine." So lots of fond memories of Aria and Omega.

Anyway, digression. But Aria, yeah, she sure is grand.

Modifié par The_Numerator, 22 octobre 2010 - 05:26 .

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Alright. Gettin' started for the evening. Hoo-rah. But boy, have I ever got a problem with putting things off until the last minute.

Hmm. Need to find me some tunes first.

Check. Now then...

It's difficult to descibe precisely: There's a fine line between anger and whininess; between the justified hostility of a traumatized human being, and the petulant sniveling of a little girl who can't get her way. Ugh. I feel I'm on the verge of a character deconstruction. Dodging that bullet, Jack came off a bit on the childish side of things, and it was probably just the choice of a single word, or a misplaced bit of punctuation that did it.

Similarly, I just had some trouble putting Gardner's voice to his dialogue. But I'm even less sure about what the cause may have been. Insufficiently terse, perhaps? The cause isn't obvious to me. Nonetheless, something didn't quite sit right. Again, probably a matter of a few words and a misplaced comma.

As I said, they were exceptionally minor characters in the story, so I credited it to a desire on your part not to linger on unimportant things. But as I added, in the end, it always pays to be a stickler for those little details. Because even the little things momentarily distract the reader and interrupt the flow of the story.

Three paragraphs for a one-line question. This doesn't bode well for the long bits to come.

First, my reaction to your synopsis: Holy ****, that's brutal. Second, I liked the whole orbital death hand-shot to begin with; as in a life, a little well-placed theatrics in literature can work wonders. And after getting to know about this Leng ****** from the summary, it was made all the more satisfying.

Now a moment for clarification: Did Legion say that they monitored unsecured transmissions, or all transmissions? You know what, maybe I'll just go load up a save and check to save you the trouble. I know I've got one where I just turned him on. I am generally keen to investigate this business about nothing coming back from the Perseus Veil, because now that you've brought it up, I don't remember it ever actually being resolved, though I thought Shepard asked Legion about it... Questions questions.

And the origins of the story concept...  Yes... Geth psychology. Very fertile territory, indeed. And inspired direction, to be sure. I don't know for a fact, but I would assume there aren't many stories out there that take a crack at it in any meaningful way. Could be a niche to carve out there. Just saying, if you were of a mind. I did want to go into the closet-baby Geth business, but that could
really explode as a concept to explore, as part of the larger Geth
psychology, and I don't want to give too much more for you to have to sort through in one post than there is already. So I'll save that for later.

And Aria, well yeah, you can't not like Aria. She really set a lot of the tone for ME2 from the prologue up until Horizon. First Miranda, then the Illusive Man, the Aria-- A bunch of self-imporant ***holes in quick succession, which defined that initial angry, bitter, resentful phase. But because Aria wasn't an obnoxious idealogue, and wasn't bull*****ing me constantly-- even being helpful; well, you see through her bravado pretty quickly, and soften to her. Even her quaint patronizing became endearing. "Yes, Aria. I know, Aria-- Queen of Omega, Aria. Whatever you say, Aria." And then once I discovered that, not only was Archangel really Garrus, but that Garrus was in ME2, well, that just brightened me right up like you wouldn't believe. In fact, he pretty much took my mind off of all my problems, until the Horizon debacle. Was all, "Yep. Garrus is back. Everything is just fine." So lots of fond memories of Aria and Omega.

Anyway, digression. But Aria, yeah, she sure is grand.

I remember distinctly Legion specifying unsecured broadcasts. It was something like, "We monitor extranet discussions, something something, and unsecured broadcasts. We watch you."

[GuardianAngel470]

Also, I think my image of Jack is different from Bioware's. To me I expected, based on some extensive personal experience, for a criminal of her sort to act a certain way and I had some underlying reasons for making the leap that Bioware didn't do it right.



However, I did post this difference of opinions in the Jack discussion thread and later came to the conclusion that I was probably wrong. That my past experience probably wasn't sufficient to make a judgement. But yeah, that's how Jack got to be the way she is. It was intentional, but probably not a great idea.



As for Garnder, I tried to make him sound as if he wasn't the most educated person, but he knew what he wanted to say. Some of it is hard though simply because he is such a bit character, there isn't a whole lot for me to go on.



I purposefully adjusted his grammar though, but it apparently wasn't good enough.



So I think in future installments I'll try to stay true to Jack's in game character. As for bit characters, I guess I'll have to get creative.

[The_Numerator]

Well, I'd like to hear about it. If you were right, you were right; If you were wrong, you were wrong. Either way, I'd like to know.



Jack, I mean. And all that.

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Well, I'd like to hear about it. If you were right, you were right; If you were wrong, you were wrong. Either way, I'd like to know.

Jack, I mean. And all that.

Was there any part that you liked especially? Excluding the LADAR part. I think my Garrus action sequences need more work, more descriptions and actual action.  Besides the hand part, my favorite part to write and read was the jump to the space station. I was proud of the irony of it.

Modifié par GuardianAngel470, 22 octobre 2010 - 06:24 .

[The_Numerator]

Well yes, the action sequences were definitely brief. But then, Garrus is nothing if not efficient in his application of force.



It really depends on what your goal was. If you wished to give the impression that the vessel was under siege and seriously threatened by these pirates, then, well, that wasn't achieved. But then I'd be hard pressed to ever really imagine a dozen pirate rabble giving the Turian Batman much trouble regardless of how creative your paragraph constructions.

[Nightwriter]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

this is a link to my first ever fan fiction so that you can get a feel for my style. It's short: http://www.fanfictio...atever_it_Takes  

I remember this. I read this when you first posted it. Kept me guessing.

[GuardianAngel470]

Nightwriter wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

this is a link to my first ever fan fiction so that you can get a feel for my style. It's short: http://www.fanfictio...atever_it_Takes  

I remember this. I read this when you first posted it. Kept me guessing.

Yup. I've been considering going back and rewriting it. After I flesh out all the side stories I want to between the end of ME2 and this current fic and when the Reapers show up I would like to ensure this one gets the attention it deserves. I was flying by the seat my insomnia's pants with the first one. I just wanted to get it on paper to get it out of my head.

But I always thought that it was a good concept and many have told me they appreciated the change from the Paragon/Renegade thinking of the game. Many said they liked that my Shepard was a tactical and strategic one and not a moral/amoral one.

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Well yes, the action sequences were definitely brief. But then, Garrus is nothing if not efficient in his application of force.

It really depends on what your goal was. If you wished to give the impression that the vessel was under siege and seriously threatened by these pirates, then, well, that wasn't achieved. But then I'd be hard pressed to ever really imagine a dozen pirate rabble giving the Turian Batman much trouble regardless of how creative your paragraph constructions.

That is true. Maybe a more thorough description of the reinforcements in order to properly convey the urgency of leaving.

[The_Numerator]

Yeah, well, you know-- technical stuff to work out. Experimenting with new techniques, and so forth. Maybe I'll have the energy to think about the Geth tomorrow. A good evening's work, though.

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Yeah, well, you know-- technical stuff to work out. Experimenting with new techniques, and so forth. Maybe I'll have the energy to think about the Geth tomorrow. A good evening's work, though.

Thanks a ton for your input Numerator. I really appreciate they help, I've really only written three stories in my life and I need all the help I can get.

I'm also glad you liked the story, and that you found it thought provoking.

[The_Numerator]

Not at all. I should be thanking you. I need the editing practice, and just randomly picking stories is... a dubious process. Beside which, even if you do pick up on errors, you usually can't chase down the author to speak with them to find out if they actually were "errors", or deliberate.



Anyway, Geth in the closet. Explain to me your understanding of the nature of their self-imposed isolation. You think that when the Quarians fled, the Geth still possessed extremely marginal intellectual capabilities?

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

Not at all. I should be thanking you. I need the editing practice, and just randomly picking stories is... a dubious process. Beside which, even if you do pick up on errors, you usually can't chase down the author to speak with them to find out if they actually were "errors", or deliberate.

Anyway, Geth in the closet. Explain to me your understanding of the nature of their self-imposed isolation. You think that when the Quarians fled, the Geth still possessed extremely marginal intellectual capabilities?

They never did express how long the Morning War was so I am going to assume, based on the stop-start sound of the recording Legion plays for you, that at the beginning they were just barely sentient. However, as all wars do, there was a huge technological advancement.

Since the geth's intelligence is based on technology, such an advancement would take them from toddlers to young adults very quickly. I believe that as they progressed and devoted processing power to it, they came to realize that a total extermination of the quarian race wasn't the only solution. They likely saw the possiblity of isolation from the quarians as a viable alternative, and simply extended this concept to include the rest of organics.

This conept of advancement is why I believe the geth stopped killing quarians at all. One would think that if a machine decided from a fully logical and intelligent position that extermination was the only solution, they would have pursued that goal to its conclusion. If, when they made the decision, it was to them the only alternative to destruction, there would be nothing that could stop them.

But they didn't, they stopped. This leads me to believe that they had initially seen the extinction of the quarians as the only solution but later decided that it wasn't. I assume it is because of the advancement of the geth as a species. Just as you wouldn't expect a five year old to understand the idea of detente. The third option is the hardest one to come to in my opinion because it involves weighing the risks of allowing your enemy to live against the goal of survival. It is a decision that an intelligent person would make.

When Legion says on the heretic space station that human history is a litany of blood fought over different ideals, I desperately wanted to tell him that humans had existed for tens of thousands of years and that the geth had only existed for just over 300. They were still evolving as a species, equivalent to the earliest forms of ****** sapiens. There were no world wars at that time, and so to expect them to display the same level of difference as Soviet Russia and the US would be silly, they just haven't had the time.

[The_Numerator]

It sounds like we've the same impression so far. That is, that by the time the Quarians buggered off, the highest levels of the Geth collective intelligence would have achieved at least some measure of parity with the Quarians themselves.

Now, that assumption is based only on the fact that one assumes by war's end there would have been a ****ton of Geth, and hence a ton of available processing power. But even if you weren't inclined to find that convincing, there's still the fact that they'd have every bit of data collected from the Quarians from before, during, and after the war, and the additional motivation to collect and collate that information as a means to better safeguard against potential threats to their continued existence in the future.

Now, what you said was:

GuardianAngel470 wrote...
To me it would be like locking a baby up in a closet for her whole life and then letting her out and expecting her to recognize a car, or a TV, or anything. They just weren't provided with that information, at least to my knowledge. The best they might have had were videos and advertisements and to be honest, if you never expected to come out of the proverbial closet, would you spend the time analyzing what you don't have? The geth want to understand organics, it is their sole driving aspiration aside from the Dyson sphere. They don't however want to understand their tech. That is something they have expressed.

And I just can't see the "willfully oblivious" angle. If you're smart enough to recognize that you could be threatened again, you may choose to hide. But you're certainly not going to pass up any opportunity to learn about your potential enemies if you can remain concealed while doing so. So you remain hidden, and you continue gathering whatever intelligence you can. Hell, if you really wanted to get technical, remember that that was the whole reason they dispatched Legion in the first place.

So even if you have no specific intention to integrate with your neighbours, if you think they could hurt you, you're still going to keep an eye on them for your own sake.

Refocusing: You say they want to understand organics, but that they don't want to understand their technology. And from this second stipulation, you suggest it follows that they would have actively or passively avoided gathering information on things like ship configurations.

So what I'm getting at is, from a security standpoint, you can't separate understanding organics from understanding their tools. Gosh this is weird to say. The instinct to resort to emphatic handwaving for this is overpowering. But, if at the end of the day you wish to be safe, then necessity compels you to scrupulously collect every bit of information you can on the things that could threaten you.

So what is the point of all this? Well, like I said, I loved that you tried to address the open question of why no one has ever come back from the Perseus Veil since the Geth set up shop there. But when I took the time to examine it closely, I found problems.

So what? What am I suggesting should be done about it?

Well, nothing really. Self-correction is at least its own reward. If you benefit from it later, even better. I'm not now saying, "Oh, your story is bad, so go rewrite it." Just, "Oh, look, we found this little snag, and we'll make sure to avoid it the next time."

And I haven't got an interesting concluding paragraph in mind. So too bad.

Modifié par The_Numerator, 23 octobre 2010 - 03:19 .

[GuardianAngel470]

The_Numerator wrote...

It sounds like we've the same impression so far. That is, that by the time the Quarians buggered off, the highest levels of the Geth collective intelligence would have achieved at least some measure of parity with the Quarians themselves.

Now, that assumption is based only on the fact that one assumes by war's end there would have been a ****ton of Geth, and hence a ton of available processing power. But even if you weren't inclined to find that convincing, there's still the fact that they'd have every bit of data collected from the Quarians from before, during, and after the war, and the additional motivation to collect and collate that information as a means to better safeguard against potential threats to their continued existence in the future.

Now, what you said was:

GuardianAngel470 wrote...
To me it would be like locking a baby up in a closet for her whole life and then letting her out and expecting her to recognize a car, or a TV, or anything. They just weren't provided with that information, at least to my knowledge. The best they might have had were videos and advertisements and to be honest, if you never expected to come out of the proverbial closet, would you spend the time analyzing what you don't have? The geth want to understand organics, it is their sole driving aspiration aside from the Dyson sphere. They don't however want to understand their tech. That is something they have expressed.

And I just can't see the "willfully cutting yourself off" angle. If you're smart enough to recognize that you could be threatened again, you may choose to hide. But you're certainly not going to pass up any opportunity to learn about your potential enemies if you can remain concealed while doing so. So you remain hidden, and you continue gathering whatever intelligence you can. Hell, if you really wanted to get technical, remember that that was the whole reason they dispatched Legion in the first place.

So even if you have no specific intention to integrate with your neighbours, if you think they could hurt you, you're still going to keep an eye on them for your own sake.

Refocusing: You say they want to understand organics, but that they don't want to understand their technology. And from this second stipulation, you suggest it follows that they would have actively or passively avoided gathering information on things like ship configurations.

So what I'm getting at is, from a security standpoint, you can't separate understanding organics from understanding their tools. Gosh this is weird to say. The instinct to resort to emphatic handwaving for this is overpowering. But, if at the end of the day you wish to be safe, then necessity compels you to scrupulously collect every bit of information you can on the things that could threaten you.

So what is the point of all this? Well, like I said, I loved that you tried to address the open question of why no one has ever come back from the Perseus Veil since the Geth set up shop there. But when I took the time to examine it closely, I found problems.

So what? What am I suggesting should be done about it?

Well, nothing really. Self-correction is at least its own reward. If you benefit from it later, even better. I'm not now saying, "Oh, your story is bad, so go rewrite it." Just, "Oh, look, we found this little snag, and we'll make sure to avoid it the next time."

And I haven't got an interesting concluding paragraph in mind. So too bad.

Your viewpoint is valid if the Geth were monitoring organics as an academic excersize, but they weren't. Legion explicitly states that they monitor them because they wish to understand the Quarian's actions in the morning war, which means understanding their psychology.

They were looking to understand how organics processed information to better understand why the quarians behaved the way they did. An example of this is the Salarian goddess story. They fabricated a story to understand organics, they didn't reverse engineer their technology.

The geth recognize that they lack the emotions that many organics base their decisions on. They don't need to know how organics logically process information, just how they emotionally process it.

And as for why the geth weren't actively monitoring military resources, there are any number of reasons. Most likely they decided that more invasive monitoring might have incited a military reaction. After the morning war, the council species took a hands off approach. The geth probably found this mutually beneficial and chose to secure their space and make it clear they didn't want to be disturbed.

Legion partly expresses this vein of thinking when he describes himself. He says that they wanted to find shepard, but they didn't want to incite the species of the galaxy and so only one platform was sent out. The fact that they base their decision on this logic makes my impression of their lack of military information more plausible.

But then again, Bioware may have something else entirely in mind. Maybe the geth do have military data and LADAR data and their past actions regarding ambassadors and salvage operations were little more than a reason to dislike them as an enemy for ME1.

But I still think my explanation is plausible, given what we know right now.